Ike Pigott argues that, as the number of conventional journalists plummets, corporations will have to hire their own “embedded” journalists to fill the void. As he puts it:

The embeds of the future will work for the company, and be paid by the company to provide news about the company in a multitude of formats. Print, newsletter, video, blog, podcast, moving billboards, tattoos — whatever it takes. Because the bits and pieces of Corporate America that have a story to tell will still have their stories – just no ready outlets.

How is this different than what you have today? Surely there are corporate PR departments and external agencies already doing these things, right?

No.

What is required is an internal producer who writes in external voice — like the neutral point-of-view so often described by Wikipedia. People can smell marketing and propaganda coming around the corner, and they know when the pitches and puff pieces are missing that edge of neutrality. An accurate and fair piece is accurate and fair, no matter who writes it.

It’s an interesting theory, but it seems to presuppose dual marketing communication efforts, with separate departments of “Straightforwardness” and “Hype”. That may work at some companies, but in most cases I think it will be more practical to try to infuse straightforwardness through multiple parts of the marcom effort.

My more specific quick responses include:

That sure sounds a lot like Robert Scoble in his Microsoft days.

It also sounds like “community managers” at MMO game companies. (Both of the MMOs I’ve played have had great ones.) They often only use one or two channels (forums and the associated general website), but otherwise they fit the bill.

I’m getting ever more sympathetic to the idea that you need people whose main job is external communication of a straightforward kind. Reasons include:

Senior executives who write great blogs commonly don’t keep them up. And even when they’re active, the blogging is pretty sparse. E.g., among companies I follow closely, Vertica, Aster Data, and Netezza have all done some outstanding blogging in the past, but do very little of it now. Only Dave Kellogg at Mark Logic really keeps going.

It’s not obvious that senior executives are wrong to spend their time at something other than blogging. One of the greatest vendor blogs ever was Jonathan Schwartz’s at Sun. Umm — how sure are we that he actually did much good for his company with that effort?

I frequently tell vendors “If you tell Story X in your own words, I’ll gladly point to it or post it for you.” They usually agree this is a wonderful idea — but then usually don’t free up the rather limited resources that would be required to take me up on it.

That said, the kinds of people who provide customer support (pre- or post-sales) are often very well suited to fill the role Ike is describing. At least, that’s the case in enterprise tech companies.

The media mix isn’t really as complex as Ike was suggesting. It basically falls into two groups: Text, and audio/video.

That said, text/graphics and audio/video media people are increasingly the same. (Just think of sports media, where the newspaper folks make their big bucks on radio or TV. That’s a harbinger of the future. Or think again of Scoble.)

One flaw of Ike’s idea is that in its pure form it only makes sense for companies large enough to have multi-person PR staffs. Other firms would have to use part-timers, or outsource. And if you’re going to do that, might it not make more sense to pay part of the cost of sponsoring, you guessed it, an independent blog?

I know that’s text/graphics-only, or at least text/graphics-mainly, but I happen to think audio/visual business news/PR is minor anyway. People may give enough attention to, for example, listen to audio from a company if it purports to teach them something. But news ABOUT a company? Who’s so interested in that to sit still for audio/video, unless they happen to be employees, or investors in its stock?

Bottom line: I think he’s wrong about some of his detailed views, but Ike Pigott is directionally very right in suggesting that newsmakers will increasingly become content creators for news about themselves.

Comments

I’d like to add a PS to this article, regarding where to put all this delicious content. Of course, you put it in RSS and various sites. But, if one simply posts it on various sites and waits for searchers on YouTube and Google to find it, then you’re limiting its reach and lifespan. Check the average number of “views” on branded content in YouTube that isn’t a sexy consumer brand, and you’ll see what I mean.

I would humble suggest that your content strategists weight the merits of putting some ad dollars into promoting the content in news cycles alongside editorial.

Some of the companies to watch in the space (including my own, of course):

– Newsforce
– Outbrain
– Zemanta
– Adfusion

There are others I’ve come across that seem to rely primarily on widget adoption and related-content targeting, but the list above are the ones with the highest penetration of desirable/premium news outlets as partners.

Great article, btw…couldn’t agree more. I am just biding my time until there’s a whole new breed of “corporate storytellers” who are part search marketer, part PR, part digital media planner and part content strategist. Perhaps you’ll start the fire…

Hi Curt — thanks for Tweeting this, because I would not have found it otherwise.

I don’t know that I have it all answered, and I am sure the future will prove me wrong on a few counts. But we are looking at some undeniable trends:

1) Businesses and organizations can now talk straight to the public (and likely a public that is more opt-in and receptive.)

2) There are fewer journalists working, which means either fewer stories or less vetting.

3) The journalism jobs are collapsing now, and aren’t waiting for us to figure it out.

4) Businesses ARE indeed noticing the impact on Earned Media, and aren’t going to wait for the iPad to save Rupert Murdoch’s butt (or however it is couched tomorrow.)

Add all those in, and you will see organizations start to hire in the people who can tell their story in an engaging way. You are right to see the conflict that might erupt when you have a biased-because-they-have-to-be traditional PR staff, and the more open transparent communicators.

It won’t be an easy transition for many companies, but as Earned and Placed continue to sink in effectiveness and audience, something will give.

I suppose you could say the hardest part about this path we’re on the the New Editors (those who remain in traditional J shops) will have to swallow the reality that they must be more aggregator and BS detector than independent content creator.

Thanks for continuing the discussion — and it is VERY flattering to have one’s name included in a post title.

ps – I thought this was worthy of following up too, and I did so on my own site: http://ike4.me/o59

Being straightforward is one potential way for advertisers to connect with real people. I think it’s idealistic and more than a little unrealistic. Here’s a more realistic approach: build ads that spread. Design ads that people will share. Companies will become meme optimizers. We’re starting to see this – just look at the old spice ad campaign.